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The Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte offers $25,000 over five years, or $5,000 annually, to Quebec artists. This Mécénat Musica Artist Award is an initiative of the donors of Mécénat Musica and Concerts noncerto.
Roozbeh Tabandeh
Iranian-Canadian Roozbeh Tabandeh is an interdisciplinary artist: a conductor, violinist, Iranian santur player and architect. Tabandeh’s compositions, which converge Western Eurological art music and Iranian national music, are performed and recorded by ensembles around the world. This past year, he received the Prix Opus in “Inclusion and Diversity” for his interdisciplinary piece, Songs of the Drowning.
With a master’s degree in architecture, Tabandeh is particularly interested in the intersection of architecture and music. Tabandeh conducted a PhD research-creation project in 2019 that delved into the interplay between architecture and music under the supervision of Sandeep Bhagwati at Concordia University in Montreal. This project specifically focused on the notion of space in Iranian auditory culture.
This year, Tabandeh won the Prix Découverte. “The funds received from Mécénat Musica was a significant asset to support my artistic activities and productions,” he says. He notes that it was especially helpful for covering parts of his artist fees that were not covered by grant applications.
Meagan Milatz
A recipient of this year’s Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer, Meagan Milatz was also awarded the Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte in 2024. The pianist is an accomplished performer, winning top prizes at competitions across the country including the Shean Piano Competition, CFMTA National Piano Competition, and Canadian Music Competition. Milatz is also co-artistic director of the HausMusique concert series in Montreal in the Grande Salle at Le 9e, Montreal’s landmark Art Deco heritage venue at the top of the Eaton Centre.
Milatz has a recording contract for nine albums of solo and chamber music with ATMA Classique. In 2023, she recorded an album of music for fortepiano and natural horn alongside Louis-Pierre Bergeron. Milatz is currently working on her first solo recording with ATMA Classique, a project centred around Robert Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” to be recorded in Belgium on an 1835 original Conrad Graf fortepiano belonging to the Chris Maene Museum.
Milatz says that both the Prix Goyer and the Prix Découverte provided a major boost to her visibility as a pianist in Canada and abroad. She looks to her mentor and first-ever winner of the Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer, Philip Chiu, as a prime example of the excellent stewardship that she hopes to carry forward.
Guillaume Villeneuve
Founding member and artistic director of the Cobalt Quartet, violinist Guillaume Villeneuve specializes in historical instruments. His ensemble released its first album, Reflets du temps, this year, accumulating nearly a million plays on digital platforms. Villeneuve also founded the concert series “Les ruelles musicales” with the Cobalt Quartet, an initiative supported by the Père-Lindsay Foundation, aimed at bringing music closer to Montreal residents.
As a soloist, Villeneuve regularly performs with the Arion Baroque Orchestra, the Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, Pallade Musica, and the Montreal Bach Festival Orchestra. This fall, Villeneuve recorded his first album as a duo with Luc Beauséjour. The two are currently touring in a baroque violin recital program.
Villeneuve says winning the 2023 Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte opened the door to many inspiring collaborations and projects. These opportunities included recording Reflets du temps, an invitation to perform Schubert’s complete quartets, and a commission to perform a new work by Adina Izarra. “Beyond the tangible benefits, this award has given me … the drive to pursue my artistic endeavours with even greater freedom, confidence, and boldness,” he says.
Marie Nadeau-Tremblay
Marie Nadeau-Tremblay is an emerging baroque violinist. A successful recording artist, her albums La Peste (2020) and Basta Parlare (2023) earned Juno and Opus Award nominations. Her album Préludes et Solitudes (2021) won an Opus Award in 2023 for Album of the Year. Her most recent album, Obsession, was released last October. The violinist recently performed with Mécénat Musica organization Autour de la flûte in a program that explored Paris through epochs of change and revolution, from 18th-century to modern compositions.
Nadeau-Tremblay has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Choquette Symcox Prize from Jeunesses Musicales du Canada (2021), a Career Development Grant from the Father Lindsay Foundation (2022), and the Prix Découverte (2022). She was grateful for the money she received from the Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte, which helped her to pay rent at the time.
Ariane Brisson
Recipient of the first Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte (2021), flutist Ariane Brisson has been invited to perform as a soloist with Trois-Rivières and Drummondville symphony orchestras, I Musici, and the Neues Zürcher Orchester. Brisson has been the artistic director of the Quebec-based ensemble Pentaèdre since 2019.
The funds from Mécénat Musica Prix Découverte allowed Brisson to develop various artistic projects—notably, her first album on the ATMA label, Mythes (2022), recorded with pianist Olivier Hébert-Bouchard. “The program on this album features transcriptions for flute and piano that I have imagined, worked on, and developed over the years,” she says, the program being the subject of her doctoral research in performance at the University of Montreal (2017-2022). “Getting to the heart of this process has allowed me not only to push my limits as a flutist, but also to revisit what interpretation means to me as an artist and to nourish my creativity.”
In March 2025, Brisson released her second album with ATMA. As principal flute with the Grands Ballets Canadiens Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville, Brisson will play nationally and internationally in the upcoming season.
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